Calgary energy consumption up during Earth hour

[SebC]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

NG is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon. Its better to burn that than other fuels for sure.

It also has low CO2 emissions for the energy it gives.

To be clear, this wasn't the result of people sticking it to Suzuki. More likely people turning on the plasma TVs to watch the game.

Sadly, they haven't even accounted for the increased natural gas consumption replacing the heat lost by having people turn off their lights yet!

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by Wookie

From what?

Sorry. Energy consumption during Earth Hour as compared to the same time last Saturday. The news here actually attributed the rise in Calgary to the BoA.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

It sounds like a hell of an idea, but would anyone really change? We already do pay a bill and we already know that if we use less the bill will be smaller, but most of us don't bother/don't care. Certainly a metre would be more "immediate" but we'd probably ignore it after the gimmick fades off.

Part of the problem (I think) is that things really are too cheap.

Take natural gas for example. I use it to cook, heat water and heat the house. If the bill is a hundred and fifty bucks well ouch, but I got a lot out of it. If I crank my thermostat down 5 degrees, put on a sweater and cut the length of my shower in half then maybe, maybe my bill is going to be a hundred bucks. So a month of "sacrifice", small as it may be, saves me 50 bucks. Big whoop.

If I'm only doing it to save money, I'm not saving much and I'm stuck wearing a sweater and having a short shower. It's probably not worth it. If I recognize that there is something bigger than saving a few bucks at stake, maybe I will.

There was a commercial on this weekend with The Hated Suzuki and he tells some guy that he's going to save 150 bucks a year if he turns off his beer fridge and the guy starts running around the house turning everything off. 150 bucks? Come on. If you want a beer fridge in the garage, saving 150 bucks over the course of the year doesn't mean squat. Probably wouldn't even notice on your bill, but you'd notice that you have to go into the house everytime you want a beer, so the fridge gets plugged back in.

It's probably a generational thing too. An increased worry for conservation and environmental efficiency seems to be related to "younger" people.

[Barnes]

After some pretty trying posts at the begining of this thread, some really good discussion. The rise should be attributted to the low temps especially when comparing it to last weekend.

I heard some people talking about what they did for earth hour that I never in a million years would have thought they would have participated. In that respect, I think it was succesfull.

[Flame On]

Just an update from the Earth Hour website:

Earth Hour was a huge success, with early reports indicating that at least 50 million people participated in this global call to action on climate change! This makes it the largest voluntary power-down event in history. And it was Canada that led the way, with over 150 cities and towns turning off their lights. Thank you Canada!
In Toronto, Canada’s flagship Earth Hour city, energy consumption dropped by 8.7 per cent and almost 10,000 people gathered at City Hall to watch Nelly Furtado, The Philosopher Kings and Fefe Dobson play a free concert in the dark. In all of Ontario, 900 MW of energy was saved, the equivalent of taking 3,200 cars off the road for one hour.
There were celebrations all across the country and results are still pouring in. In British Columbia, energy consumption was reduced by 125 MW. The energy saved in Ontario and British Columbia alone is equivalent to turning off 20.5 million lights.

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think the problem is that no one connects there actions to an actual cost. If it cost you $2 to have your living room light on, you would actually think about turning it on, and if you did, how long it is on. I have no idea how much things I use in my house cost me. A load of laundry, I have no idea how much that costs in water and electricity. If the temp outside is -10 how much does it cost me to keep the house +22 as opposed to +19? I have no clue how much it costs. If people could see an immediate benefit (yes to themself because people are selfish) they would act quicker and more consistantly.

There was a study I read a few years ago where they installed cost meters in a set number of homes to show this sample how much they were spending on electricity. The results were that it did not curb consumption habits at all.

I think this would work if prices were high enough, but energy is just too cheap to change behaviour right now.

[Arsenal14]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

Sorry. Energy consumption during Earth Hour as compared to the same time last Saturday. The news here actually attributed the rise in Calgary to the BoA.

Most of the Calgary news attributes it to the weather being much colder than it was the previous week (and some of it due to the BoA). Just goes to show how nonsensical the whole event was. If it had been a beautiful sunny day we would have been down in consumption regardless of the whole "Earth Hour" campaign. Instead we showed that the campaign wasn't even enough to offset the extra consumption caused by the weather being different.